America Comes of Age - The Korean War
Like Lambs to the Slaughter
US defense spending had reached a modern day low. The military was ill-prepared and ill-equipped, those in authority embraced questionable doctrines. From a post World War II soft life in Japan, with servants to wash their clothes and shine their boots, these American youth were suddenly uproote
d and flung into harm's way. There was no "Remember Pearl Harbor." The North Korean People's Army was on a roll. The North Korean People's Army had invaded the Republic of Korea in South Korea only 11 days earlier and overwhelmed the ill-equipped Republic of Korea armed forces. The North Korean Peop
le's Army steamrolled into Seoul, driving refugees and regrouping Republic of Korea Army units before it, clogging roads and throwing the countryside into a panic. The invasion caught General Douglas MacArthur and his Far East Command and Eighth Army by surprise, despite recent intelligence reports
that North Korea was planning for an attack on the Republic of Korea. General MacArthur had disregarded the reports, saying he did not believe war with North Korea was imminent. The events that unfolded on the Korean peninsula some 45 years ago offer a telling reminder of what happens when a force g
oes to war unprepared. Disaster lurks around every bend. Facing a force of 130,000 NKP soldiers, 3,000 Soviet advisors, a full array of heavy weapons, aircraft and the formidable T-34/85, arguably the best tank to come out of World War II. American GIs fought bravely at times. At other times when c
onfronted with overwhelming, numerically superior forces, they "bugged-out" to the rear, cursing their government for sending them to this stinking, God-forsaken place where human feces were used to fertilize the land. Photos The Library of Congress The Korean War National Museum U.S. Army Center of
Military History Democratic People's Republic of Korea Audio Clips The Library of Congress - Veterans History Project Wessel's Living History Farm Music Perry Como Far Away Places Aaron Copeland Fanfare for the Common Man John Williams Saving Private Ryan Omaha beach Hymn to the Fallen conceived
and produced by: Dale Caruso For more information about the Korean War http://www.army.mil/cmh/ http://www.korea50.mil/ http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/ http://www.paulnoll.com/Korea/index.html http://www.loc.gov/vets/ http://www.koreanwar.org/html/units/21ir.htm

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